Notable Quotables - 11/30/1998

Ken Starr, Evil
Puppeteer?

"What about the
image and impression of Ken Starr as the sort of evil puppeteer
behind this entire investigation?"-
John Hockenberry to Gwen Ifill on MSNBC's InterNight,
November 19.

"Because if I were
the President's lawyer I wouldn't let Starr be the only
witness. The public be damned, excuse me ladies and gentlemen,
but I'm not gonna let my client go down for reasons of
expediting our discomfort. I'm gonna call any witness I can to
prove that Ken Starr is a partisan zealot who has had a chip on
his shoulder and has it in for my client from the get-go. And
I'm gonna do everything I can to prove that there is a vast
right-wing conspiracy that's been out to smear this man."- Geraldo Rivera
on what he'd advise if he were Clinton's lawyer, November 11
Rivera Live on CNBC.

Hitting Both Sides
from the Left

"If Kenneth Starr
did not have enough evidence to file charges related to
Whitewater and campaign finance, why should he have a right to
bring it all up during the hearings?"-
Good Morning America co-host Lisa McRee to Republican
Congressman Charles Canady, November 19.

"But clearly, according to what Starr has presented so far,
last night in writing, about two-thirds of it will be about the
Monica Lewinsky matter, but another third will be related to
Webster Hubbell and campaign finance and alleged hush money. Is
that fair, Congressman Meehan?"-
McRee to Democrat Marty Meehan, same segment.

Rest in Eternal
Torment, Gingrich

"Go back and read
that speech he gave when he was voted speaker. It was a speech
in which he said his political hero of the 20th century was
Franklin Roosevelt, in which he said we should cooperate and
work together. I heard that speech and said, hey if that's the
Newt Gingrich that's shown up with the Republicans behind him,
they're going to be a formidable force. But then things turned
around, and in fact it was ideological warfare, it was take no
prisoners, it was burn and raze the village."-
Sam Donaldson on Good Morning America, November 8.

"They look at Bob Livingston and they say certainly he
comes across as a nicer guy. His rhetoric is sometimes loud, but
it's not as ugly or mean as Newt Gingrich."-
NBC reporter Chip Reid on MSNBC's The Big Show, Nov. 9.

That Poor Hush-Money
Millionaire

"I don't think
its going to have much impact on impeachment at all. I think
Ken Starr's made his own position even worse with this
outrageous third indictment of Webster Hubbell. How many
times?"- The
Wall Street Journal's Al Hunt on the November 14 Capital
Gang, referring to the impact of the showdown with Iraq.

"It's hard to know who to root for in the Webb
Hubbell-Ken Starr thing. On the one hand, here's Hubbell,
right, he gets a million dollars from all the President's
friends in three months to do nothing in 1994. That's odd,
it's strange. I wish we all could get that deal. On the other
hand, Ken Starr seems to indict the guy seasonally."-
Time Washington Bureau Chief Michael Duffy, November 14 Inside
Washington.

"To re-indict Webb Hubbell, to me that shows that Ken Starr
is like a deer caught in the headlights. He's got big bug
eyes. He's gonna do anything. He's so mad that his neck is
going to blow up....This is a hate crime! This is a hate
crime!"-
Geraldo Rivera on CNBC's Rivera Live, November 16.

"You do have to wonder if Webb Hubbell isn't the ultimate
victim in all of this. I mean, indicted, indicted, and
indicted."- Time
White House reporter James Carney on CNN's Inside Politics,
November 13.

"This has been a source of tremendous sadness for the
President and deep irritation at the Independent Counsel for
going forward with yet another indictment against Webster
Hubbell."-
CNN White House reporter Wolf Blitzer, same show.

We're All Proud
We're Democrats

Co-Host Kevin Newman:
"Well, what did they see when they watched the hearings
yesterday?"Debra Dickerson, U.S.
News & World Report Senior Editor: "I think
African-Americans saw two things: They saw Representative
Conyers, Mel Watt, Sheila Jackson-Lee, and Representative
Waters, especially Sheila Jackson-Lee came off very magisterial
and very kind of, Barbara Jordan-esque yesterday, and so
African-Americans are really very proud of the way we're
conducting ourselves, and we're feeling very, kind of, heady,
the way we came out of the elections, having played such a
pivotal role in Democratic successes."- Exchange from
November 20 Good Morning America.

Weird, Insulting
History Lessons

"It worked in
Stalingrad. To some degree, it worked in the foreign compound
during the Boxer Rebellion in Peking in 1900. It certainly seems
to have worked for Bill Clinton. When there's no capability of
offense, no escape, and especially if you're lucky enough to
have an overconfident opponent - just batten down the hatches
and wait for the idiots to defeat themselves. Impeachment, once
spoken gravely by presidential defenders and opponents alike,
now engenders giggles and arguments about it carry all the
weight of arguments about who is the rightful Czar of all the
Russias."-
MSNBC Big Show host Keith Olbermann, November 23.

"Does E.J. [Dionne] have this pretty much nailed in terms
of the more rabid ends of the Republican Party, I mean in the
sense that, if you're gonna lose, as I said earlier, make it
like the Civil War where you can turn it into the 'we stood
until the very last man kind' of loss?"-
Keith Olbermann to Tony Blankley, same night.

Keith Olbermann: "I was watching, just the
other night, the highlights of the Army-McCarthy hearings, and I
was reminded of this today. Joe McCarthy, not even paying
attention as with each reference he made to one of Joseph
Welch's second chair attorneys, he dug himself deeper and
deeper into a hole that he thought he was making this point that
was for his case, and he was just burying himself. Is there not
some perception, Mr. Starr's point that Web Hubbell and
prosecuting him now is almost walking into a radioactive
dump?"Former Washington
Post and New York Times reporter E.J. Dionne:
"Well, I think the fact that you just said it suggests
it's going to be thought of by a lot of people, sure. It's
the Hubbell trifecta...He faces potentially over 100 years of
jail time which means he'll get out just in time to watch the
end of this investigation."-
November 13 Big Show on MSNBC.

"It was on this date in 1927 that Joseph Stalin completed
his consolidation of the leadership in Russia by engineering the
expulsion from the Communist Party of Leon Trotsky. Darn. With
Newt, the Republicans missed that anniversary by just six
days."- Olbermann, November 12 Big Show on MSNBC.

"After the election, House Judiciary Committee Chairman
Henry J. Hyde insisted it was business as usual for the
impeachment process. Generals in the German High Command
probably said the same thing after D-Day."-
Los Angeles Times reporter Ronald Brownstein, November 9.

Tripp Sends Them to
the Shower

"I thought that
Linda Tripp now takes her place in the Hall of Infamy as a
betrayer on the order of Benedict Arnold in the, at least, in
the love '90s...I think anybody who wrapped themselves around
Linda Tripp and her tapes is now soiled. You felt the need to
take a shower. What that woman did to her young friend is beyond
the pale. I think its much worse than anything Bill Clinton
did."-
Geraldo Rivera on NBCs Today, November 18.

"Stand by to feel like you need a shower.... Okay, one of
them will read the part of the irresponsible adolescent, the
other will narrate the lines of the pathetic, self-destroying,
older loser and you and I will be Polonius hiding ourselves
behind the arras."-
Keith Olbermann, November 17 Big Show on MSNBC.

Starr Should Have Been
McCarthy

"He looked fine. I
thought the Democrats looked terrible. I mean, this was the
moment that called for a Joe Welch, like the guy in the
Army-McCarthy hearings who said 'Have you no decency, sir?'
The Democrats didn't have anybody like that. They sounded way
too prosecutorial and I thought it looked silly."-
Newsweek Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas on the
talk show Inside Washington, November 21.

They Never Asked
Clinton This

So-Called Freedom
Fighters?

"This is the
longest landing strip in the country. In the 1980s, the Reagan
administration used it to support what it called freedom
fighters in their effort against the leftist Nicaraguan
government."-
ABC reporter Mike von Fremd surveying Hurricane Mitch damage in
Honduras, November 10 Good Morning America.

Larry King, Ding-A-Ling

"If he had to
testify, do you think Thomas Jefferson would have been
impeached? No chance, there was no talk radio."-
CNN's Larry King in his USA Today column, November 16.

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